5 STARS, June 24-30. A bone chilling and riveting production that’s not for the faint hearted, says Alice Cairns
There is definitely such a thing as too much theatre. I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of plays over the years, but I’ve recently noticed the onset of a sort of theatre fatigue. I sigh when I hear a dodgy regional accent, and experience a shudder of déjà vu when I learn that two actors will be playing 30 characters. Many’s the time that my body has been sat in the audience, while my mind is far away debating which flavour of ice cream to buy in the interval, or calculating whether I’ll be home in time for Love Island.
Which is why I was so surprised to find myself jolted and shaken by The Collector at Hampton Hill Theatre. It was the kind of riveting, raw theatre that I haven’t seen in a long time.
The Collector is an adaptation of John Fowles’s disturbing masterpiece. Frederick Clegg is a nervous, isolated young man, obsessed with collecting butterflies. He’s a nobody, in thrall to his domineering aunt and cousin. But that all changes when he wins the lottery. He uses his newfound wealth to buy a van and a beautiful, isolated cottage with a spacious cellar. He then collects his rarest and most valuable specimen yet, a beautiful art student called Miranda Grey. In love with her but afraid to touch her, desperate to grant her every wish – except freedom - he imprisons her in his home.
Rather heavy subject matter, you might well think – and you’d be right. It certainly isn’t the cosy, gentle fare I’d come to expect from amateur theatre. Be prepared for some pretty intense content; Miranda is violently sick right before your eyes, glass shatters at your feet (and has to be cleared away by patient staff before the audience can leave). You watch desperate escape attempts, urgent screams, writhing illness, and blistering rows. It’s not comfortable viewing, and it’s made even less comfortable by the staging at Hampton Hill Theatre. Seated around the edge of a small room, the audience is mere inches away from the action. The staging is so intimate that I often had to tuck in my legs to avoid tripping up an actor. It adds a claustrophobic, immersive element to the already taut and disturbing production.
We watch as a complicated relationship develops between prisoner and jailer, replete with simmering anxieties about class, ownership and love. Their interactions are riveting, and their ever shifting power dynamic makes for breathtaking viewing. The whole thing is flawlessly performed by the two actors, who are both able to draw moments of humour, and of real terror, from the script. Matt O’Toole as Frederick Clegg is by turns vulnerable and deeply sinister. Rachel Burnham is brilliant as Miranda, making her capable, brittle, sympathetic and terrified. Their performances wouldn’t be out of place on the London stage.
It’s intense theatre, the kind that’ll leave you a little shaken when you make your way home. But if you can stomach a little darkness, this visceral production comes highly recommended.
Tickets: teddingtontheatreclub.org.uk
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